Once Upon a Time: New Fairy Tales

by Goss, Theodora

  “So, this giantess lives atop the glass mountain and has the mysterious crown and eats everyone who comes to visit?”

  “Well, except us—except the ravens—not enough meat. But it doesn’t stop her using us for target practice.”

  “And the crown can only be gained by someone with pure intent? I don’t imagine that would include you.” The bird didn’t answer. “Raven?”

  He gave a shrug of sorts. “Well, that’s what we told her—the part about pure intent.”

  “You lied?” Emer was less scandalized than delighted by this breathtaking bit of avian bravery. “You lied to her?”

  “She doesn’t know everything, you know,” the raven squawked. “She’s just so . . . We couldn’t bear the idea of losing more of our number every time she sent us off on one of those quests. She’s crippled but she’s got everything and it’s never enough. Imagine her with that crown, whatever it does, still demanding more, more, more! We—I—thought if we put her off long enough, maybe she’d run out of time, so we haven’t been trying too hard to do what she’s asked.”

  “Why are you helping me? After all, you were the one who started this whole thing.” She waved at him so he could see the scar still marring her palm. The bird had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  “It’s not easy, you know. Disobeying her takes effort and it hurts. And I had no idea of what she was planning. I’m sorry for what I did. You deserve no more torment, nor does your mother. You saved me from that cage and I owe you a boon. I’ll help you retrieve what you need; what you do with it after is something you must consider carefully.”

  The journey had been interrupted only by the raven’s chatter. They had covered leagues and leagues, the line of the river easy to follow, the roan tireless and intent. Yellow eyes gleamed from shadows and thickets, hands gnarled against tree trunks as their owners peeked out. Emer heard snuffles and snorts, snarls and grumbles, but nothing came near them. Wolves and trolls, ogres, and things with no name watched as they passed, but left them unmolested. She wondered if the Black Bride’s power stretched this far, or if these brutes simply sensed her touch on Emer. Or worse, she thought, sensed that they shared blood.

  Their destination was less a castle than a single stout tower of ochre-colored stone. Inside, the main chamber was topped by a stained glass dome that, on sunny days, showered the room with shafts of color. The air was icy, however; it leeched the hope from Emer’s bones and she wondered if she’d ever see the sun again. She could feel the raven trembling on her shoulder. He’d been silent ever since they set foot in the bastion.

  The giantess, all big bones, protruding eyes and corkscrew auburn hair, was ensconced in wingback chair, knitting, and giving Emer the same look one might bestow on a beef roast. Emer was glad she’d left the horse—who had taken the glass mountain at a canter and danced a kind of jig to show how pleased he was with himself—outside. Along the wall behind the enormous woman was a series of hooks, almost all hung with ill-made scarves. The scarf-free one held a huge bow of elm wood and a leather quiver filled with arrows longer than Emer’s arm.

  “How accommodating of you to arrive at lunch time,” rumbled the giantess, who began to roll up her knitting. The door behind Emer shut with a clang and she rubbed sweaty palms against her trousers. She lifted her chin defiantly and wished she could fly away.

  “My lady,” she quavered and the giantess seemed taken aback to be so politely addressed. “I’ve come to ask—to beg with pure intent—for the crown.”

  They both looked to the crystal plinth in the center of the room; it was topped by a primrose cushion that held a circlet of white and black feathers.

  “Ask as purely as you like, my girl, you’re still going to be eaten.” The amazon nodded, rose, and reached for her weapon.

  “Wait!” yelled Emer, and something in her tone stayed the woman.

  “And why should I? I don’t like to wait and I’m starving—always starving.”

  “I imagine it’s hard to get enough food when you’re stuck up here, madam,” said Emer.

  The giantess loomed and Emer quaked. She hurried on. “I do not ask your bounty for free. I offer you something most valuable in return.”

  “What could you possibly have to interest me, you little thing?”

  “What if I were able to provide a loaf of bread that is never depleted and a flask of wine that never runs dry? Would that not sate your hunger, mistress?”

  The giantess crossed her arms over her mammoth chest, contemplating. “And where would you find such a treasure, little scrap?”

  “Outside, on my horse,” answered Emer, hoping the stallion hadn’t taken it into his head to go for a run elsewhere.

  “Then bring it hither. I demand proof before I agree to consider this bargain. And I am not saying I will . . . ”

  Fifteen minutes later, when the giantess had attempted and failed to entirely consume the loaf and the wine three times, Emer thought her troubles were over.

  “And so, my dame? Do we have an accord?”

  “Let’s not be hasty, little speck,” said the woman slyly. “What’s the point of eternal food and drink without companionship? It’s been decades since I’ve had a chat—what with my tendency to eat my guests. Stay awhile.”

  “My lady—” began Emer, aware of the night’s hours bleeding away.

  “My lady, this young one is no fit companion for you—she has not lived long enough. What stories could she possibly tell? How she once wet her bed nightly, what frocks she has worn?” The raven began to wax lyrical. “I, on the other hand, am no mere bird.”

  Looking into the creature’s swirling, sparking eyes the giantess admitted this fact. She seemed to nod more than was necessary. It was no wonder the woman normally shot birds out of hand; it was dangerous to listen to them. Bertók’s voice swooped low, its ragged edges barely discernible as he promised hours, days, weeks, months, and years of conversations. The woman, Emer thought with a tinge of sympathy, had no idea what she was getting herself into.

  By the time the raven had finished, the giantess leapt to her feet, removed the delicate crown from its cushion, and held it toward Emer.

  “Thank you,” Emer said, as she reached out. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” growled the giantess and snatched the crown away, while wrapping one meaty paw around both of Emer’s wrists. “Did you think me a fool to fall for sweet words? Anyway, what’s a sandwich without meat?”

  Emer’s heart hammered, and her mind emptied of all thoughts but these: feathers and air, lightness and flight. Just as her memory retained the language of birds, so too her flesh kept recollection of their form. This time the shape was her choice—no one else’s to give or take or impose. She gladly shifted, shrank, sprouted plumes. Within seconds, the giantess clutched only emptiness, for the girl had slipped the fleshy bonds and snatched the crown of feathers with her beak.

  The door to the chamber remained shut. Emer flew around the room, faster and faster, higher and higher, knowing the giantess was reaching for her bow. She heard the nocking of an arrow, curses thundering from the woman, the twang of a bowstring. She braced herself, heard a thud, but felt no pain. Risking a glance, she saw another black body hurtling downwards. Resolute and determined not to waste Bertók’s gift, she raised her head and aimed towards the stained glass.

  The raven-girl pierced the dome, raining colored shards on the giantess. She shot upwards, a shadow against a pallid sky. With the dainty adornment gripped tightly in her beak, she flew on, tracing the snake of the river back to whence she came.

  If the Black Bride had been surprised to see Emer feathered once more, she did not show it. The girl landed and transformed, steadfastly meeting her captor’s gaze.

  “Give it to me, girl,” said the Black Bride, her tone limned by longing, and not a little desperation.

  Emer shook her head. “My mother first. Restore her.”

  A brief, tense standoff took place while the Black Bride
insisted her niece hand over the artifact before anything else occurred. Emer remained adamant. In the end, a rage-induced coughing fit tipped the balance in Emer’s favor. The Black Bride was forced to concede that she did not have enough time left to indulge in a battle of wills.

  When her mother at last stood beside her—shaking, dazed—Emer held the out crown. The Black Bride snatched at it greedily, turned it this way and that, held it up to the light, her eyes shining. Then she faltered, looked at her sister and niece and asked plaintively, “How does it work?”

  And Emer recalled the story from her aunt’s own lips, how she had done away with her mentor before full knowledge could be passed on; for all her power, the Black Bride was a half-written book—she might well know what an object did, but not how.

  “Put it on, I’d imagine,” Emer said, then asked quietly, “What does it do?”

  In an equally hushed voice, the Black Bride replied, “It mends broken things,” and, reverently slid the delicate diadem onto her blackavised brow. She waited, breath rattling, eyes wide and avid, a covetous child expecting a treat. Seconds stretched to minutes as she attended, with increasing impatience, for any sign of change, of amendment.

  When it became apparent that no healing was forthcoming, the Black Bride’s face seemed to split with rage.

  “What have you done? Did you think to defy me?” She turned on Emer, stalking towards her, spitting out every horrible name she could muster.“I told you there would be no second chances! Both of your lives are forfeit.”

  Emer and her mother stumbled backwards, transfixed by the sight of the Black Bride summoning her power, watching as it coursed around her body, and sparked at the fingertips. Wanting, but not daring, to turn tail and run—for that would be certain death.

  The dark woman drew back her unmaimed hand, and just as it seemed she would strike Emer down, the White Bride—in a flash of ash and silver—threw herself at her sister. The attack, so brutal and brave, so unexpected, threw the Black Bride off balance and she retreated under each enraged blow her sister rained down. The firebolt-bright magical charge around her stuttered and snuffed, but she struck back, her nails tearing furrows along her sister’s smooth cheeks. The White Bride snarled and leapt, not noticing how close they had come to the windows, and the force of her bound sent them crashing into one of the shutters. The wood, brittle and ancient, splintered like twigs and both women were oh-so-briefly silhouetted against the winter sky . . . then gone.

  Emer rushed to the sill and peered down, too terrified to catch enough breath to scream as she watched them fall. She clung to the hope that her mother’s flesh would remember the shape of wings, that she might fly; but it did not.

  Flames erupted when the Brides hit the cobbled courtyard. Emer waited. The fire burned down quickly, leaving a cloud of dust and cinders that swirled and circled and, finally, found form.

  Where two women had fallen, only one remained, unfurling like a lily, her hair a mix of light and dark, skin a creamy melding of the two extremes, limbs intact, unharmed. A single woman, lovely and whole. The mother-aunt raised her head, looked at Emer and beamed.

  “Come home,” she called. Emer stared, an uncertain smile on her lips, and she heard the echo of the Black Bride’s voice: She raised an army to find you. She thought of her mother as she had always known her, the docile White Bride, so kind and loving; wise, but so bound by convention; always passive, meek, and accepting—until the loss of her daughter. It had taken tragedy to give her the strength, determination, courage the Black Bride always had but used selfishly.

  And Emer reflected on her entire life, on how it was moved by the ebb and flow of others’ desires. She thought of her mother and aunt remade, all their chances given to them anew. She contemplated updrafts and thermals, swooping and diving. She looked at the sky, at the horizon.

  “Come home,” called her mother-aunt again.

  Emer shook her head, only vaguely aware of the ruckus in the chamber behind her, of hares returned to the shape of men, and dogs released from servitude.

  “I shall find my way there . . . some day.”

  Emer-that-was thought herself weightless. She thought herself plumed, skipped onto the sill and pitched out to spiral down and hover in front of the woman. The raven-girl memorized the new face, the familiar features, so she might recognize them later, then with a powerful flap of her wings, Emer-of-feathers rose towards the dawning firmament.

  Angela Slatter is the author of the Aurealis Award-winning The Girl with No Hands and Other Tales, the World Fantasy Award-shortlisted Sourdough and Other Stories, and the new collection/mosaic novel (with Lisa L. Hannett), Midnight and Moonshine. She received a British Fantasy Award for “The Coffin-Maker’s Daughter” (A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed.), a PhD in Creative Writing, and blogs at www.angelaslatter.com. In 2014 she will take up one of the inaugural Queensland Writers Fellowships.

  I loved fairy tales when I was a child. Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” made me cry. As I got older I was thrilled by how grim the Grimms really were. Then came Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling’s anthologies of reworkings and subversions, which led me on to “The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter. It contains my favorite short story, “The Tiger’s Bride,” her take on “Beauty and the Beast.” It’s dark and dangerous. It speaks of objectification, desire, and our true natures. It’s important to me, not just as a reader, but as a writer. It made me pick up a pen.

  So, I still love fairy tales. Not so long ago I bought a beautiful copy of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Scandinavian fairy tales collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen and Jørgen Engebretsen Moe, and illustrated by Kay Neilson. Someone I know, who will not be named here, saw it and asked, “What are you buying children’s books for?” If you’re reading this anthology you’re the sort of person who understands the folly of this question.

  “Egg” is dedicated to my mum, Veronica Sharma. It’s a very personal and important story to me for a number of reasons. It’s about the difficulty of wishes. Every wish has a price. We just need to know what we’re prepared to pay.

  Priya Sharma

  Egg

  Priya Sharma

  I consider my egg; its speckled pattern, its curves, strange weighting, and remarkable calcium formation that’s both delicate and robust.

  It hurts but I’m determined. The old hag promised. I put my egg inside me.

  Hot water soothes my skin. It plasters my hair to my scalp and runs in rivulets down my back. I nurse the heavy feeling in my lower abdomen with my hand. Then comes a different sort of deluge. Blood trickles down my thigh. Water carries it away and down the drain.

  It’s expected. I’ve already urinated on a stick this morning and it pronounced me without child. Disappointment has joined agony and blood on the same day of each month.

  I drop my towel into the laundry basket and dress.

  There’s a sparrow on the balustrade. A blighted bird, one of many breeds decimated by predators, harsh winters, and pestilence. The public were outraged by the loss of blue tits and robins but sparrows are too nondescript to feature on calendars and cards.

  Another joins it, then a third. The trio perform an aerobatic display, as if they don’t already have my attention. A fourth, now a fifth. More and they’re a flock.

  I step onto the terrace but they don’t flee. They stay earthbound and hop around, leading me down the steps to the lower garden. Past the tennis courts to the fresh green avenue of limes. Over the stile and across the fields to the crumbling farm buildings at the edge of my estate.

  The barn. The sparrows enter through a broken panel. The rusty hinges whine and creak as I pull the door open.

  The old hag lives on a bed of moldy hay, twigs, moss, newspaper, and woollen tufts. She squats rather than sits. Her irises are covered with a milky shroud. She wears layers of white, each stained and torn, like a demented virgin bride.

  A sparrow lands on her
upturned hand. The hag brings it to her face and peers at it with opaque eyes, listening intently, as if to a song I can’t hear, before it flies up to the beams above.

  We have an audience up there. Blackbirds, starlings, jays, sparrows, falcons, and a variety of owls jostle together for space, having set aside their differences.

  “Who are you?”

  “That’s a rude greeting for a guest.” The hag’s voice has a peculiar melody, rising and falling in the wrong places.

  “Guest implies an invitation.”

  “I’m here at your request. I’m sick of you asking.”

  “Request? I’ve never seen you before. I’ll have you thrown off for trespassing.”

  “You’ve been hard to ignore. You’re crying out with want.”

  “I want for nothing.”

  “Liar. The ache’s consuming you.”

  “There’s nothing you can give me.”

  “Not even motherhood?”

  “You can’t give me that.”

  “Can’t I?” Then a sly smile crosses her face. “You’ve tried the usual way?”

  “It didn’t work.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t try hard enough.”

  I have, not lacking in partners and willing potential fathers.

  “I have fibroids and severe endometriosis.” I sound bitter. My pelvis contains a tangled mess of lumps and adherences that renders my reproductive tract defunct. I’m still outraged by my body’s betrayal. It’s failed in the most basic of female functions.

  “Can’t the quacks help?”

  “What do you think?”

  My specialist had stressed that my conditions were benign but I couldn’t see the benevolence in what’s caused me so much pain and robbed me of a child. My own salvaged eggs, fertilized and implanted, failed to take as if they’d fallen on stony ground.

  “Adoption?”

  I shake my head.

  The hag must be able to see with those white eyes. She counts something on her fingers and calculation done says, “I’ll help you, but there’ll be pain.”